


Show Me Why You're Strong

by heartattack2013 (orphan_account)



Series: Arithmancy [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, apparently, dark!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/heartattack2013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it’s the fact that he is asked, and many people have asked Stiles for things, but none of them have actually wanted anything from him besides his father.</p><p>People want pencils, they want paper, or his notes, or for him to behave, to be quiet.</p><p>His father wants him to be patient, to be kind, to be loyal, and to love him despite; his father wants Stiles in that way no one really understands until they have children and only children.</p><p>His father wants him in the desperate way.</p><p>Peter wants him in those ways too, except not.</p><p>Peter wants all these things to apply to him, he wants Stiles to give himself to him, wants him in a visceral way, and in the way lovers do.</p><p>He see’s something in Stiles and no one has seen something in Stiles since his mother.</p><p>So he says yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Me Why You're Strong

**Author's Note:**

> Lord bless I have not slept in over 24hrs and have drank way too much tea and coffee and only ate once so and I got a few good reviews but by this point I can't stand this fic, it might actually be malarky but here it is tbh but whatever here.

Maybe it’s the fact that he is asked, and many people have asked Stiles for things, but none of them have actually wanted anything from him besides his father.

People want pencils, they want paper, or his notes, or for him to behave, to be quiet.

His father wants him to be patient, to be kind, to be loyal, and to love him despite; his father wants Stiles in that way no one really understands until they have children and only children.

His father wants him in the desperate way.

Peter wants him in those ways too, except not.

Peter wants all these things to apply to him, he wants Stiles to give himself to him, wants him in a visceral way, and in the way lovers do.

He see’s something in Stiles and no one has seen something in Stiles since his mother.

So he says yes.

...

 

When he wakes up it’s nearly dead silent, and Scott is staring at him in wide eyed horror, pants tearing through the silence viciously, and it occurs to him that it may in a very literal sense be dead silence.

He can smell blood, he can smell the whole forest and bits of the populated areas near, he can smell  
Scott’s breakfast too actually.

But he cannot feel Peter.

He can smell him, but he can’t feel him, and he thinks he should, he’s thinking that’s a big deal.

Because there’s this space in the center of his chest, aching much like he imagined a phantom pain would when he read that one article, like he’s missing a limb, like he can feel where it should be.

Where Peter should be.  
...

They’ve already buried Peter.

He can’t do anything but go home, Scott doesn’t follow

.....

 

He goes to school, he fidgets, he writes, he smells, he hears everything and nothing, the world like static, he gets tired, he goes home.

He mourns.

It’s ridiculous because he really has nothing to mourn, nothing more than the cusp of a thing, a possibility, a future, not an actuality. He did not know Peter.

He knew his words though, the press of his fingers, and warmth of his breath; of his praise.

He knew his lips against Stiles skin, the press of his teeth against his wrist, against his muscle, inside him.

He knew the open press of Peter’s mouth against his own, the sweetness of his breath, the staccato heartbeat pressed against under Stiles palm, betraying his smooth demeanor.

He knew Peter’s want.

He aches with it, Peter’s absence, his own desire, his wolfs outrage.

He is a lone wolf though, and lucky to be alive in the aftermath of all that mess, he can’t act of out of fear of attracting attention.

It’s not a fear of failure though, Derek did not kill Peter because he was skilled, he got lucky and was there when the situation provided an opportunity.

Stiles could easily make his own opportunity.

He can’t do that really though, and he cannot speak to Scott about it either; out of anger, out of betrayal on both parts. It’s awkward and stilted and slightly leaning towards passive aggressive.

On the first full moon though, Stiles does not lose himself any more than he already.

He falls asleep, and there is Peter.

Peter bathed in rich light, Peter lit up from the inside out and powerful and gorgeous.

Alluring.

They’re nude, it’s there’s nothing but skin and dirt, an empire all natural, just him and Peter and the Earth.

At some point he begins walking and loses his strength, collapses on his hands and knees before he can reach him.

 

Peter meets him halfway.

It feels like divine intervention.

...

 

He wakes up with purpose; he falls in bed desperate and alone.

Over and over again.

Dreams of Peter becomes a constant, his father comes around, as does Scott. You could almost say that nothing is lost, that he’s got everything he had in the beginning of all this.

Except all this didn’t start with Scott being bitten, it started in the hospital with all-consuming anger. The kind of rage that would urge an eleven year old to hack some girls hair all off because she complained about it being too long.

It began with jealousy, and a fire inside, a desire to outlast.

Selfishness bred out of deprivation.

It began with loss.

So actually, he has less.

He does not have his mother, he does not have Peter. He only has his himself, his father, and Scott, and not even they are his.

This bitterness is like a vine, it grows up, up, up, and it twist around him consuming him before he can even really consider it.

Stiles wants something for himself, and purely for him, not for the people of Beacon Hills, not for Allison, or the greater good, just him.

Peter was his. Now he is not, he is nothing at all.

...

Being a wolf comes to him like a second skin, it’s like something settled, the world finally matches the pace of his mind, and at first everything is buzzing with life and movement and sound.

It descends into fall soon though, and everything slowly begins to die.The buzzing of life makes way to the crackle and absence of death, rotted and crisp.

Something happens to Jackson, Lydia wakes up, Allison and Scott get caught, and some more Agents come to town.

Derek bites a boy.

His name is Isaac Lahey; he’s got curly light brown hair, a small nose, and a sharp facial structure. He is quiet and much like a bomb, always ticking, feigning rest when he is really always all too active, much too alive.

He gets taken in during lacrosse practice, his father has disappeared, Stiles can tell he has no clue what the hell is going on.

And neither does Stiles, so he goes to Derek.

It’s been months since they’re spoken, months since Stiles could think about him without white rage washing over him, months since he could look him in his eye and not only see his murder.

A secret, Peter tells him this is a secret; but Derek is not bad, even when he was young and obnoxious and ignorantly cruel he was not bad, even when he kills he’s is not bad.

He is just power, raw and easily manipulated to others wills, a magnet for desperation of all types, a unwilling piece to a game he can’t quit, he is nothing but an object, never be afraid of him.

Stiles is not afraid of Derek.

But Derek has no clue what’s going on and he’s afraid of himself.

Derek doesn’t know that either though, it’s a secret.

 

...

 

Peter’s lips are slick and warm as they push against Stiles with force, but without resistance, without violence, only passion.

Stiles is aflame, lit up; a warmth coursing through him and making him shake with need.

There are words like, “please” and “need” and “me” falling from his mouth, and he cannot stop his pleads, cannot shut down his desperation.

Peter is supposed to be here with him, he is not supposed to feel so alone, and this was not supposed to isolate him more.

“I can’t want; I can’t move on, I can’t Peter please”

“Please” 

His voice breaks and he is pathetic even in rest.

“Let me go”

Peter kisses the corner of his mouth, the tip of his nose, his right cheek bone, the corner of his eyes, his left temple.

His hands spread over him and cradle his face; he presses into Stiles and peers into his eyes. Strokes Stiles cock absentmindedly, his grip strong and possessive but not to a point of pain.

Possessive.

“I can’t” he says.  
.  
Stiles comes.

 

...

 

Sometime after trying to box the kanima in at the rave and Scotts near death Stiles becomes aware that his morals are on their last leg.

There wasn’t much there to begin with, a deep rooted love for his mother gave them place in his younger years, an obligation to his father keeping them alive in her absence.

But more loss has sanded them down, they have lost space to desire of all sorts (for knowledge, for power, for freedom, for Peter), have been shaken down by his rage at the injustice. Selfishness blossoms in the wake of this, twisting around the bitterness and stealing it’s life. Stiles is losing his patience to follow and let it all come together, to not step in where he see’s opportunity and take what he pleases.

He knows it is his love that keeps him from doing so, and something else he doesn’t want to admit to (it feels like weakness)

He has lost much in this passing year, but he has not lost his compassion for his tiny family of two, three if you count Melissa, and all his choices trace back to that, to them.

He does the right things because that is what they would want him to do, he follows Scott because Scott’s moral compass is unbridled, and he trust Scott to make the right decisions.  
But he is tired, and while his wit, intelligence and compassion has stayed alive and kicking, his patience is on its deathbed along with his morals.

He goes to Lydia’s party because that is the right thing to do.

When he ultimately regrets it though that’s pretty much it for him though, he is done.

Because he has always loved his father and always will and he is not able to take his abuse, he is not strong like Lahey, even if in reality, it is Stiles doing it to himself.

There’s a kanima and Matt though, and everyone is fucked up on whatever Lydia poisoned them with. Lydia whom; btw, is fucking MIA.

He doesn’t have room to just up and quit now, to give into to his rage, now he has to run now.

 

...

There’s a time when the dream isn’t pretty, where it’s dark and static with anger crackling in the air and all around him.

When Peter looked him in the eyes with the more intent than Stiles could ever even fathom, 

“I need you to be okay” 

“Say you get it; say you understand why I chose you” 

“Tell me you know how much you’re worth” 

He can’t remembered what he’d said back, just that it’d sounded like shame in his ears and felt like it against his tongue. 

… 

 

The lights are flashing red in pitch darkness and his father is trapped in the middle of all this; hunters and wolves and kanimas and sociopaths. Stiles face is a heated and itchy in the way that it always is when he is crying entirely too hard, and if he could not see his father, could not hear his heartbeat, he would be not so much as done as broken, unable to function as human being at all.

The idea that he could very well lose his only family left to this demented child is beyond terrifying.

 

...

 

At one point angry does not begin to describe what he is, at some point he becomes furious. 

 

…  
By the time he actually gets back to himself, back to his normal desperation (not the detached numbness and vague ache he’d adopted) he has accepted this Peter he has given himself, this Peter who hand feeds him and somehow gets him to tell good jokes, who ask about his day and drags solutions to problems out of him rather than handing them out. 

The Peter that banters and snarks and presses and dominates, the Peter that makes him so very angry yet happy and needy all the same. . 

The Peter who makes slow sweet love to him with mesmerizing backgrounds that buzz and shift and blur as he palms Stiles fragile skin. 

The Peter that loves him, the Peter he could have had. 

He embraces the feeling of his strong hands and calloused fingertips as they slide up Stiles thighs and grip him possessively, that spreads his knees apart and lifts his leg up and over, resting on shoulder, presses his hot mouth onto the inside of his knee and makes Stiles quiver. 

He opens Stiles up, and Stiles let’s him, let’s himself enjoy it. 

... 

 

The thing about thinking he’s going to die is he’s not ready for it. 

How many people are really ever ready to die though, he knows there are masses of them, but the people willing to live surely must outnumber them. 

Even now, in these moments, where he is confused and lonely and spectacularly done with everything, he’s not ready to die. He has too much to do, too much to say, a voice that has barely been heard by his own ears. 

He has regrets; mainly that he could not find the confidence and passion he’s harnessed in these last few moments these last few months. He knows how he feels now, he knows his limits, and he knows what he wants do, what he cares about, what’s worth fighting for, he knows to let himself be okay. 

He knows it’s okay to mourn, he knows it’s okay to want and miss Peter. 

He knows that believing life, believing living, and wanting to preserves this, is not a weakness. 

Now he all he needs is time to put these things into practice. 

He needs time to be loyal and kind and patient with his father, time to draw the line with Scott, time to strip down and run on the full moon, time to cook more curry. 

He needs time to tell Derek to go fuck himself and to tell his Boyd and Erica that they’re fucking pussies and they shouldn’t have taken the bite if they weren’t ride or die, that they should have been here fighting too. 

He needs time to show them, and himself where he fits in this all, where his place is, that he is not just there, that he is not just Scotts side kick; his idiot friend. 

He needs time.

...

 

Derek heals before him because he’s an alpha and he somehow convinces Scott to escape and get Stiles out of there, Stiles starts feeling his toes by the time there halfway to his jeep and by the time they’re fifteen minutes away from his house he is fully functioning again.

He’s alive, and there is nothing else he can do as of now but wait. Nothing else he wants to do honestly; when he said he was done he meant it, at least until he can find some footing and get a handle on the situation.

 

….

 

He rips out Gerard’s throat in the dark on field the next night in the midst of the panic; he wouldn’t typically go as far as to think he was so quiet the man didn’t notice Stiles was a wolf too. But it’s apparently very much true, because he wouldn’t (couldn’t) make such a mistake as to try him so unprepared otherwise.

 

… 

 

Jackson dies on the field.  
Stiles take the body from the morgue and burns it, with good reason too; it was in the middle of a metamorphosis, on to worse things.

He goes home

 

...

 

Peter is in his room, on his bed, breathing and warm and real, in the flesh, alive.

“Jesus Christ Peter what did you do”.

And there it is, that slow sly smirk he knows, sliding easy across his face before giving way to an honest smile. 

He chuckles, “I don’t think you want to know.”

All Stiles can think is ‘fuck’ 

 

…

 

Several months ago Stiles would have been scared of this, would have been scared of Peter risen from the dead, would have been scared of what that meant for him. 

He would have been desperate too, would have needed Peter to make him see what he could accomplish, what he was capable of, how to make sense of what he wanted and what he wanted to be. 

Now he can (after much time spent fighting with himself and other baddies) confidently say fuck that and fuck everything else. He has no need to justify himself to others, he is not weak or dumb or even just there.

He is a force to be reckoned with, he is something, he can do what he wants, it doesn’t have to be the “right thing either”, there are no sides, there is no black or white, there are no set rules. 

There is only shades of gray, factors that affect and control the output, and everything adds up to he and Peter. 

Everything adds up in general, and Stiles will never have to justify himself because in the end he has always done the math. 

He just needed to figure it out.

**Author's Note:**

> Review and I'll prob cry, just saying, happy tears of joy can be yours to take responsibility 4, omg, wow, sounds gr8. Great, do it to it then. 
> 
> Btw this is un-beta'd along with my current situation and also a gr8 contact high from some pretty dank green so sorry about all spelling/grammar/english mistakes.


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